The Phantom: A Hero Who Influenced the World
In one of my previous articles I discussed how The Phantom became — and remains — one of the most popular adventure comic strips in the world and yet is all but ignored by the American comics industry. In this follow up article, I’ll be looking at how the character has influenced cultures around the world.
What the very first comic book (as in a magazine-style publication of 20 pages or more focusing on the one character) featuring The Phantom was is something that was up for debate until recently. Originally, it was thought that the honour went to the May, 1937 published Italian comic Collana Albi Grandi Avventure #1. However, some eagle-eyed fans noticed that a Brazilian comic, also from 1937, had a publication date a month earlier. The story did not end there though, as it was revealed that a comic from the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia predated the Brazilian comic. Titled Fantom, it was confirmed to have been published sometime before April 14th, 1937, thirteen years before the US would see a The Phantom comic.
As discussed previously, however, the character and the comic books featuring his adventures were a huge success internationally!
In 1948 Australian publisher Frew Publications secured the rights to reprint The Phantom newspaper strips in comic book format. Originally publishing comic books featuring other…
